Most drugs and medications currently prescribed by physicians or sold without prescription require periodic administration at specified times. If the patient errs and repeats the doses too frequently, an overdose may result. Similarly, if the patient should fail to administer the medication at the proper time intervals, the concentration of the medication in the patient's body may become too low.
Therefore, certain time keeping responsibilities are clearly imposed when taking a medication. This time keeping responsibility falls of necessity upon either the patient or those who take care of him or her. With regard to the later, the problems are aggravated if more than one person cares for the patient, such as in a family or institutional setting. The multiple attendants must accurately communicate with one another or confusion may result as to when medication should again be administered. This situation may lead to under or over dosage of the medication.
Perhaps most commonly, the patient will note the current time on a watch or other standard time keeping device. On the basis of the physician's instructions regarding the minimum and maximum safe intervals between doses, the time of the next administration should be governed on the basis of the time as committed to memory or recorded in some other way. A number of disadvantages become apparent with the prior art methods as the time of the prior administration may not have been observed, recorded, or communicated correctly leading to errors in the use of medications. These problems become particularly acute in patients whose mental or physical condition makes them less capable of reliably discharging such actions, or as mentioned above, where a number of persons are responsible for the patient.
Other suggested solutions to this problem are found in the prior art. A number of devices are designed to either minimize or reduce the mental calculation involved and/or operate as reminder devices. Some of these devices comprise a small pill case having a timer and alarm built into it such that when the alarm sounds, the patient will be alerted and hopefully act in accordance with the instructions provided by the physicians prescriptions.
Often, however, the patient should not use such a reusable pill container, timer and alarm. For instance, it may be impossible (as with liquids), inconvenient or improper to transfer medication from the primary container to such an integral pill box. More importantly, some medications are not suitable for use with reusable pill containers due to accumulated toxicity problems.
Perhaps more fundamental, these devices only act as simple alarm clocks that include the sometimes convenient feature of positioning the medication in close proximity to the clock. Other than sounding the alarm, however, no provisions are made to ensure or urge compliance with the medication schedule. The user can simply cut off the alarm and never take any further steps toward administering the medication, either through intentional or unintentional neglect, thereby risking an underdose condition. Further, if the user does take the medication on schedule, he or she may still neglect to restart the timing function, and thereby risk an overdoes condition.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,448,541 discloses a magnetically responsive switch for resetting the timing measurement function that is suitable for both integral and non-integral medication containers. U.S. Pat. No. 4,361,408 discloses a compression contact switch strapped to the outside of a medication container. A number of digital medication timing devices have been produced with automatic resetting compression switches located within the cap closure all arranged to detect the removal or full replacement of the cap on a screw-cap medication container. Some of these are designed to function on child-resistant containers that require the presumed strength and skill of a competent adult to operate.
Certain difficulties are inherent in the prior art in that these cap contained devices with automatic reset switches may (1) breach the physical and chemical security of the inner (medication-containing) compartment of the medication cap closure in order to introduce the wires for the electrical switch contact circuits, (2) may interfere with the function of the child-resistant mechanisms that are used to prevent unintended opening and thus also cause problems with the proper operation and safety of such mechanisms, (3) require that each version or batch of the cap closures be tested to demonstrate its compliance with child-resistant regulations of each government, and (4) cost more to produce in multiple cap closure sizes each with its own physical production requirements.
In view of the above, the prior art lacks a medical timer device suitable for use with child-resistant and non-child-resistant medication containers and that further contains an automatic time-measurement restart switch mechanism external to the inner (medication-containing) compartment that responds to some parameter of medication cap closure position indicative of compliance, thus encouraging compliance with the instructions for the use of medication.
Those concerned with these and other problems recognize the need for an improved medical timer.